Congress changes risk undermining UCU democracy, members fear

University and College Union members have raised concerns over proposed changes to its democratic processes, fearing it will weaken their ability to influence decisions at a crucial time.

The UK’s largest academic union could put votes on key decisions to the wider membership, rather than just allowing delegates attending its annual congress to decide.

Restrictions could also be placed on members’ ability to change the agenda of the event, seen as the union’s supreme policymaking body.

A survey has been sent to members asking their opinions on the changes, with supporters stressing that nothing has been decided.

They say changes are needed to ensure the union is more representative and to stop factions pushing through agendas that may lack wider support. 

But Lucy Burke, a lecturer in the School of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, feared the changes would make it harder for members to challenge the union and “feeds into a sense of democratic deficit which is making people feel that some of the things that the union does means that there’s little point in engaging with them”.

Currently, UCU’s congress sees delegates from university branches debate policy proposals and suggested internal rule changes before voting on what they would like the union to prioritise.

This could now be changed so that all members are balloted on any rule changes that affect the union’s governing structures.

At the moment, delegates can also change the agenda of the event to decide if additional motions are heard or dropped but the survey says this “considerably reduces the amount of time available to debate motions”, suggesting the proceedings be fixed earlier.

Burke said that “diminishing the power of congress is a problem, and it feels...to a lot of people as if it’s tied to an endeavour to curtail the energies of those people who are the most active in the unions”.

Michael Carley, a senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath and a longstanding UCU activist, said the proposals remove power from members to challenge the agenda and get motions reinstated with “no way” to reverse those decisions. “I think that’s a very dangerous thing from a democratic point,” he said.

This “shifts the power” of congress away from “congress delegates, who are the representatives of the branches”, and gives greater power to the general secretary and national officers, he said, adding that it hinted at coming rule changes that would not get passed by congress currently.

However, UCU president Dyfrig Jones said that change was needed, given that the annual congress is inefficient and putting off potential members.

“We usually spend the first hour of any given congress having an argument about the agenda. What happens more often than not [is that] matters that have been ruled out of order will then get a majority vote to rule them back on the agenda, and this is often contrary to legal advice.”

Jones said that delegates attending congress are often “extremely unrepresentative” of the wider union, noting that roughly 30 per cent of union branches do not attend or are under-represented. Delegates can therefore push through decisions that are contrary to the beliefs of most members, he said, highlighting a motion that passed in 2023 which called on the government to stop arming Ukraine.

“When people talk about democracy, for me, one of the most fundamental measures of democracy is: are the decisions taken by any democratic body reflective of the views of the majority? And I think that the problem that we have with congress is quite often they are not.”

Vicky Blake, a member of the union’s National Executive Committee, said that “many things can be true at once”, and although she thinks democracy within UCU could be improved, she “understands” the concerns of members.

Blake said that the proposals, which will be debated at future congresses, risked dominating discussions within the union, leaving little time to look at policy issues affecting the sector.

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com